Marketing Strategy & Pro Tips

Know Your Target Audience Or You Will Fail

Why You Should Know Your Target Audience

You want to create quality content that will grab your visitor's attention, connect them to the correct landing page on your website, and actually get them to purchase your product or service. That's easier said than done if you don't know your target audience. Who are they? Where do they spend their time most? What are they looking for?

Here are three reasons to define your target audience:

After you have an idea who your target audience is, you can begin forming a niche group of followers who share similar characteristics. Having a smaller target audience means that you are spending more quality time focusing on a niche group’s needs.

Understanding your audience will give you an idea of whether you need to have a formal or informal tune within your content. While an online community of friends enjoys the informal and relaxed tone in writing, a more professional audience may expect a more formal voice.

If your audience are a group of experts or have a preference of topics that they like to learn about, then you can spend less time guessing what they want to read and spend more time providing better content that they are looking for.

When you’re creating the right content for the right people and ensuring that they are benefiting from each article, you are more likely to convert readers into customers.

How to Understand Your Target Market

Once you are able to identify your audience, you want to make sure that you understand what they are looking for in your content. Ask yourself:

What problems does my company’s product or service solve? What are the audience’s most common problems that need solving?

Who are our current customers? What are they interested in? Where do they spend their time researching? What topics do they think of the most?

Who is my competition? Why should customers choose us instead?

In the end, your target audience should connect with your product/service, your main demographic, and your content’s mission.

Creating Content for Your Audience

So, you finally have better knowledge of who your target audience is. Now what? You want to create content that will focus on their needs and grab their attention.

Finding Your Content Core

Create content that your target audience wants to read without engulfing them in advertisement for your product or service. Your current customers may be interested in features & savings, but your new potential customers most likely want to focus on the content for their own benefit and get their questions answered. Instead of focusing on the product and service directly, focus on topics that surround what your product or service can do for them. When the reader is ready to buy, they will be well informed and remember where they got that info from.

Adjusting Your Writing For a Target Audience

Every time you write to your audience, you must make sure that the voice you convey is specific to your audience’s characteristics, personality, and needs. Creating a personality profile or buyer persona is one way to better know your target audience.

Remember to focus your content on your audience’s needs by focusing on questions that they would normally ask you or your competitors. Build trust by sharing the benefits of your blog and services rather than the feature that it provides when they use it. End your content by giving your audience a clear call-to-action, such as purchasing your product or service, or receiving a free consultation.

For more information on creating content that will turn your viewers into customers, check out our new eBook below on effective content marketing strategies.